Fifth Pentecost
Mark 6:1-13
Our lesson today starts with the words, "he left that place, " That place was where Jesus had just healed Jairus' daughter who everyone thought was dead, That place was where the crowds pressed in on him to see what he was doing. That place was where he healed a woman simply because she touched the hem of his garment.
That place was where all these things could not be kept secret even though Jesus told them to tell no one. The word got out and crowds came to see and to acclaim and to praise and to celebrate this Jesus.
Clearly "he left that place" when he entered his hometown of Nazareth. Nazareth was a different world entirely. When Jesus went to the synogogue, nobody was in awe, nobody celebrated his wonderful deeds and nobody wanted to listen to his teachings. Instead they questioned "isn't this the carpenter's son, the son of our neighbor Mary? Aren't his brothers James and Joses and Judas and Simon. We know them--they're just ordinary folk. His brothers were real hellions when they were young. His sisters shop at the market with us. He's just a hometown boy, what's so special about him.
As is so often true of episodes with Jesus we learn more about the people with whom he interacts than we do about him. Jesus is like a mirror that reflects back the fears and prejudices and narrow mindedness of these villagers that might just be examples our own narrow ways of thinking.
The hometown people of Nazareth had low expectations of Jesus because he was one of them. He played with their kids, he made the deliveries from his fathers shop. Isn't he the one that ran away that time when his parents were coming home from Jerusalem. And here he comes back and expects everybody to fall all over him.
The truth is the villagers did not expect any more of him than they did of anybody else coming from Nazareth. After all Nazareth was so insignificant a town the Hebrew scriptures never even mention it. In Jerusalem Nazareth was considered just one of those lost little bergs where people spoke with funny accents. After Phillip, who came from Bethsaida,met jesus he went to tell his friend Nathaniel. With great excitement Phillip, gushes, "we have found him about whom Moses and the prophets wrote, jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth." Nathaniel,with more contempt than enthusiasm retorts "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" Nazareth, just a backwater town with backwater people. Hicksville, lower nowhere. Other people saw it that way and so not surprisingly the people there probably came to think of themselves with the same disregard.
Chuck Infelt is the pastor and director of Holy Family ministries which is a church and a school serving the West side of Chicago, used to be Cabrini Green. The gospel message that he brings to the students and the parishioners is that regardless of where you live you are precious and special in God's sight.
Susan Work who is the tireless development director for Holy Family School and I were talking at one of the benefits. We had just heard a wonderfully inspiring speech from one of the alumni. "It must be wonderful to have these alumni come back and share their successes" I said. "Actually" she said "we don't have a great return rate with alumni. First of all a lot of people who have succeeded don't like to look back. And then when they do come back they don't feel a part of things anymore and they meet with some pretty strong skepticism." I guess I can understand that.
I suspect it was hard for the folks in Nazareth to accept Jesus back. They didn't think that much of themselves and were pretty skeptical about him...and who he had become.
In her novel Meridian , Alice Walker tells how the heroine. Meridian. one day found a piece of heavy metal that was covered with rust. To her amazement she found that her possession was a bar of yellow gold! She rushed home to her mother, who was sitting on the back porch shelling peas, and placed the large heavy bar on her mother's lap. Her mother said, "Move that thing! Can't you see that I'm trying to get these peas ready for supper?"
Meridian turned to her father, the rest of the members of her family, and eventually the other members of her neighborhood. No one was interested in sharing her joy. She had something wonderful to share, but she was rejected by those who knew her best.
Meridian took the bar of gold and put it in a shoebox and buried it under the magnolia tree in the back yard. About once a week she would dig it up and look at it. As the days went by, she dug it up less and less until finally she forgot to dig it up at all!
Jesus sends us out just as he did the disciples with a gift, a wonderful message of helaing and power.
Amen